Protect: protection against SMS fraud

If you sign up to a website using your mobile phone or send an SMS to a mobile number, you may become a victim of fraud. You may find that even after sending a payment, you don't receive the promised service, or that a small amount is regularly debited from your account. As part of the Protect integrated security system, Yandex Browser monitors and blocks fraudulent sites.

Blocking suspicious sites

Yandex tracks phishing sites and resources that may be used by scammers. The addresses of such sites are stored in a special database. If you try to visit a resource that may be linked to SMS fraud, Yandex Browser blocks the potentially dangerous page and notifies you of it: a message will appear in the Yandex Browser window and the  icon in the SmartBox.

Alert

Think carefully before visiting such a site. This could be dangerous:

  • If you do, you will be asked to perform actions that will result in money being debited from your mobile phone account. There will be no message warning you that a fee is charged for using the service, or the message may be difficult to find.
  • It is likely that you will not receive the services you paid for at all or they will not be delivered exactly as promised.

Examples of SMS fraud

The situations described below may occur if you visit fraudulent websites or infected resources. Please note that a website that was secure yesterday may be infected today. They may also be the result of malware on your computer.

Alert

Malware may intercept information that you enter on websites and send it to hackers. Therefore, we strongly recommend using antivirus software.

Registration on a website via your mobile phone

  1. The site asks you to enter your mobile phone number under various pretexts. For example, the site asks for your number to register on the site or to prove that you are not a robot, to activate software updates, to prevent your social network account from being blocked, and so on.
  2. You receive an activation code on your phone and are asked to enter it on the site.
  3. By entering the code, you activate a paid subscription.
  4. A small amount of money starts being deducted from your phone account every day, usually 20-30 rubles.

Sending a message from your phone to a mobile number

  1. You are asked to send a text message (SMS) from your mobile phone to a number shown on the site.
  2. You send the text message. The cost of sending the message is higher than the normal rate to send an SMS. In addition, the website may not contain any information on prices, or this information is hidden away in an unnoticeable location on the site.
  3. Immediately after you send the SMS, your mobile phone account is charged a certain amount, usually 100-200 rubles. In some cases, money is withdrawn daily.

Additional security measures

The Protect system's database of infected and suspicious websites contains more than 80,000 websites. However, some fraudulent resources might not be included in the database if there have been no complaints about them yet. Take the following precautions to protect yourself from hackers:

  • Do not enter your mobile phone number on sites that you do not completely trust.

  • Do not send messages from your phone to numbers shown on websites.

  • Avoid transferring any personal data or data required for e-payments (bank card numbers, PIN codes, and so on).

Disabling protection

Alert

If you want to disable protection from SMS fraud, you have to disable protection from malware and malicious sites in Yandex Browser completely. We strongly recommend that you don’t do this.

To disable SMS fraud protection:

  1. Press  → Settings.

  2. Go to the Security tab at the top of the page.

  3. In the Protection from malicious files and websites section, uncheck the box labeled Run security checks on websites and downloaded files.

Follow the same steps to re-enable SMS fraud protection.

If Yandex blocks your website

If you believe that Yandex mistakenly blocks your website, please follow the instructions on the SMS fraud page.

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